2nd Person Slashed on NYC Subway System

Published 7:00 pm, Friday, January 10, 2003

A man was stabbed with a boxcutter as he rode the subway, the second person in less than 24 hours to be attacked by a stranger while taking the train, police said Saturday.

Police said they were treating the attacks as unrelated and had made no arrests.

Joseph Cornier, 26, was riding a Manhattan-bound train in Queens just before 9:30 p.m. Friday when another passenger stabbed him in the neck and fled, police said. The victim did not know his attacker, no words were exchanged and no motive was apparent.

Cornier was treated at a hospital Saturday and released.

In a separate attack early Friday, a 21-year-old college student was slashed by a knife-wielding man as she waited for a train in lower Manhattan.

Police said a man approached Yael Leopold and asked her if she was a prostitute. Police said he slashed her after she laughed and said no.

Leopold, a senior at University of Massachusetts, underwent surgery for cuts on her face, scalp and hands, and was scheduled to be released from Bellevue Hospital on Saturday.